Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden

When he saw that she was unconscious he acted with the decision and promptitude which had raised him from a simple parish priest to the wide fame and distinction he had won. Rapidly turning her over on to her back, he opened her mouth and performed with singular verve the op- eration which he usually reserved till after his morning meal. “ There are more ways of killing a dog than choking it with shit,” he mused, “ but none are so economical. To proceed ! ” Hastily cramming some of the overflow — for the Archbishop had dined well — up her nostrils, he drove a knife (which was conveniently handy) into her bowels, and plunged his straining and kicking butter-knife within the hole thus formed. The foaming guts closed round his maddened member ; the convulsive heaves of the suffocated lady simulated — nay, sur- passed ! — he wildest crissations of the most ac- complished courtesans, the most domesticated ma- trons ; and the Archbishop rode to glory in a char- iot of fire truly seven times hotter than its wont. Hardly had the jets of boiling love-lotion flooded the peritoneal cavity of the now rapidly pu- trefying Countess — the weather was hot, and she had been for some days a martyr to internal gan- grene — hardly had the venerable and saintly ec- clesiastic subsided with a scream, prophetic of ap- proaching mania, upon the corpse of his victim, when the curtain was withdrawn and a reporter from the Daily M . . . stepped carelessly into view. His tool still dangled outside his trousers ; for re- porters do not wear drawers or carry handker- chiefs, and he had relieved his feelings by a juicy yet glutinous frig. Looking around the apartment he noticed the various items of interest with pro- fessional celerity, and by the time the good Archbishop had risen and repaired the disorder of his attire, he was able to bow politely and request [18]